But if we’re going to take God’s word seriously, we’d have to conclude that God promotes the very “sex addiction” that Pastors and marriage counselors seem so quick to warn against.

Consider Proverbs 5:19… the penultimate passage on married sexuality:

As a loving hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be exhilarated always with her love.

Two key words here:

The word translated as “exhilarated” is shagah, which means to “go astray.”

Shagah is typically used in the context of being drunk or committing a sin out of ignorance. Picture a man who is so blind or intoxicated that he is not even aware of what he’s doing. He is veering off the path of reason into blind passion.

Now that’s interesting enough, but here’s the twist:

God doesn’t advise us to simply be shagah once in awhile… he wants us to be in this state of blind passion for our wife’s body always. The word translated “always” is tamid. It literally means “going on without interruption”, “of uninterrupted continuity.”

To put it another way:

The modern Christian marriage is the exact inverse of God’s design.

Most marriages are drudgery interrupted by occasional sexual passion.

But the proper marriage is continuous blind sexual passion occasionally interrupted by the necessary duties of life.

This is the only way I can make sense of the Apostle Paul’s commandment in 1 Corinthians 7:5:

Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.*

Apparently, the Apostle Paul expected a healthy marriage to be so sexually charged that they wouldn’t have much time to pray.

But there may come a time when it would make sense to stop engaging in perpetual foreplay. Perhaps you’ll need a few days to focus on prayer and studying Scripture without being distracted by a constant bulge in your pants.

But this is only if both husband and wife agree. And it should only be for a short while.

This also explains why both Paul and Jesus encouraged celibacy for those who were able. A married men is too busy messing around with his wife to have time for any outside enterprise for God’s Kingdom.

Marriage is designed to give normal men and women what they want most.

What do men want? To have a lot of sex.

What do women want? To feel sexy and get attention.

The Proverbs 5:19 lifestyle satisfies both needs.

It’s almost as if God knew what he doing.

—

* “Self-control” in 1 Cor 7:5 is sometimes translated as “incontinence.” It wouldn’t necessarily have the negative association we might read into it. It can simply mean that one has sexual appetites he cannot refrain from… which is part of God’s good design. Paul refers to singleness and marriage as different gifts, with singleness being preferable if one is so inclined.